You only need to worry about being a guinea pig when you break out in weird skin conditions or you grow some extra body parts.......You were talking about 400W TP........ Do you now have 3 legs?

On the FTP thing - coach has me doing 6x5 @ 120% with 2 mins recovery. My 5 minute power (VO2Max) is fantastic (for me) - not sure about my LT improving though. I regularly do 2 Hour rides and can't say I've seen a vast improvement in FTP. According to the calculator on Golden Cheetah and Training Peaks my current FTP is only 280W but my 5 min power is now 355W. Whilst the 5 min number keeps going up the FTP number keeps moving around 275-285. My suspicion is that you need to do more FTP type sessions (20min plus) to improve it..... go figure eh?

My FTP and 5min numbers are pretty much the same. When I do solid VO2max work I can push it up to about 375w (62kg) but FTP seems to stay at about 280w and unless I keep doing VO2 work, then top end power falls back to around 350 again.I had the same thing last year and what pushed it up from about 260 to 280 was things likeover/unders - something like 2mins @ 110% 2 mins @ 90% for an hourlonger 2 or 3 x 30's at 95%and my favourite 20mins @ 100%, 5min rest, 60mins @ 90%, 5mins rest, 20mins @ 100% and trying to negative split the first 20.

cadence: your own preference, preferably the one you will be using for what you want to become good at

%HR: During 2 x 20, I average arround 85% maxHR, by the end of the interval, my HR is more arround 90%. Hard to tell but 85-90% is a good guess. Make sure you dont hit 90% inthe first 5 min though, this would mean you over ooked it. Keep you cadence steady, you can even rise it up a bit because of trainer warmth, if you do it on the trainer that is.

HR around that 85% of max HR. Cadence 90-95. And as devinci mentioned, you need aim at steady effort and let your HR rise to the level. For me it takes at least 10 minutes of the first 20' to get my HR up there at steady wattage.

oh and FWIW, I find 2 x 20's a couple of times a week is not enough to increase FTP.YMMV but I personally need to go over threshold for longer intervals (15mins+) or significantly increase time at or near threshold (eg, 3 x 30mins, 2 x 45mins etc)

oh and FWIW, I find 2 x 20's a couple of times a week is not enough to increase FTP.YMMV but I personally need to go over threshold for longer intervals (15mins+) or significantly increase time at or near threshold (eg, 3 x 30mins, 2 x 45mins etc)

That depends what intensity you class threshold as. Threshold for me is 95% - 105% FTP. If you can do more than 20 minutes continuously at 105% FTP then your FTP might be set too low/inaccurate.

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